whomper Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 (edited) Im not sure if this is lip service or not and you guys know I dont know much about politics but every time you hear about Bin Laden the same quote always follows when they discuss his whereabouts "He is beleived to be hiding in the rugged lawless mountains of Pakistan and protected by Warlords. I always think to myself as a Layman "Why the hell dont we get in that mountain and start slapping people around" The answer is politics and the bad position it would put Mushariff in since he has been somewhat of an ally and allowing us to do that would bring big consequences to him..So I am relieved to finally read this Obama Vows to Hunt Down Terrorists By NEDRA PICKLER,AP Posted: 2007-08-01 12:12:26 Filed Under: Elections News WASHINGTON (Aug. 1) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists even without local permission if warranted - an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive. AP "They are plotting to strike again," Barack Obama said during a speech focusing on terrorism Wednesday. The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid. "Let me make this clear," Obama said in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." Obama's speech comes the week after his rivalry with New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton erupted into a public fight over their diplomatic intentions. Obama said he would be willing to meet leaders of rogue states like Cuba, North Korea and Iran without conditions, an idea that Clinton criticized as irresponsible and naive. Obama responded by using the same words to describe Clinton's vote to authorize the Iraq war and called her "Bush-Cheney lite." Thousands of Taliban fighters are based in Pakistan's vast and jagged mountains, where they can pass into Afghanistan, train for suicide operations and find refuge from local tribesmen. Intelligence experts warn that al-Qaida could be rebuilding here to mount another attack on the United States. Musharraf has been a key ally of Washington in fighting terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but has faced accusations from some quarters in Pakistan of being too closely tied to America. The Bush administration has supported Musharraf and stressed the need to cooperate with Pakistan, but lately administration officials have suggested the possibility of military strikes to deal with al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden. Analysts say an invasion could risk destabilizing Pakistan, breeding more militancy and undermining Musharraf. The Pakistani Foreign Office, protective of its national sovereignty, has warned that U.S. military action would violate international law and be deeply resented. A military invasion could be risky, given Pakistan's hostile terrain and the suspicion of its warrior-minded tribesmen against uninvited outsiders. Congress passed legislation Friday that would tie aid from the United States to Islamabad's efforts to stop al-Qaida and the Taliban from operating in its territory. President Bush has yet to sign it. Obama's speech was a condemnation of President Bush's leadership in the war on terror. He said the focus on Iraq has left Americans in more danger than before Sept. 11, and that Bush has misrepresented the enemy as Iraqis who are fighting a civil war instead of the terrorists responsible for the attacks six years ago. "He confuses our mission," Obama said, then he spread responsibility to lawmakers like Clinton who voted for the invasion. "By refusing to end the war in Iraq, President Bush is giving the terrorists what they really want, and what the Congress voted to give them in 2002: a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences." Obama said that as commander in chief he would remove troops from Iraq and putting them "on the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan." He said he would send at least two more brigades to Afghanistan and increase nonmilitary aid to the country by $1 billion. He also said he would create a three-year, $5 billion program to share intelligence with allies worldwide to take out terrorist networks from Indonesia to Africa. Edited August 2, 2007 by whomper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avernus Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 that Obama girl is smokin' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H8tank Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 So.... obama is going to invade pakistan, the military will overthrough mushariff and take control of all their nukes... and this is a good thing? Obama needs a little reality in his koolaid. We should overthrough pakistan right after iran, syria and saudi arabia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DemonKnight Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 (edited) So.... obama is going to invade pakistan, the military will overthrough mushariff and take control of all their nukes... and this is a good thing? You just love putting words in peoples mouth, doncha? Not that I'm a fan of Obamas, but damn, get a grip bro. Havent you heard of the special forces? We copuld invade cross-border hideouts and Musharaf would be none the wiser. Heres Pakistans response... Pakistan slams 'ignorant' Obama attack warning Thu Aug 2, 6:28 AM ET ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan accused Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of "sheer ignorance" for threatening to launch US military strikes against Al-Qaeda on Pakistani soil. Obama warned Wednesday that if he is elected president, he would order US forces to hit extremist targets on Pakistan's frontier with Afghanistan if embattled military ruler President Pervez Musharraf failed to act. "Such statements are being made out of sheer ignorance," Pakistan's Minister of State for Information, Tariq Azeem, told AFP. "They are not fully apprised about the ground realities and not aware of the efforts by Pakistan." Islamabad has bristled against a string of similar threats in recent weeks by the administration of US President George W. Bush, whose top counter-terror official in July refused to rule out US strikes in Pakistan. Musharraf, struggling to contain a wave of Islamist violence unleashed by the army's bloody storming of the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad three weeks ago, himself firmly rejected any US action last week. "We have said before that we will not allow anyone to infringe our sovereignty," Azeem said. "If there is any actionable intelligence they should tell us and only our forces will take action on it and they are quite capable of it." The minister suggested that Obama's comments were prompted by Washington's inability to curb the ongoing Taliban insurgency in neighbouring Afghanistan, where US-led forces toppled the hardline regime in late 2001. "This seems to be a reaction to their own failure in Afghanistan to control the US casualties and instead of addressing the situation there, they are finding scapegoats and damaging their own cause," Azeem added. Pakistan foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam on Wednesday warned against "point-scoring" by US presidential candidates on vital security issues. Musharraf abandoned Islamabad's support for the Taliban in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. He has said that a top US official warned that Pakistan would be bombed back to the "stone age" if it failed to join Washington's "war on terror". Edited August 2, 2007 by DemonKnight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savage Beatings Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 He's getting blasted by Hillary and by the GOP for being "inexperienced" and "naive" about this. He's the only one who has had the guts to say that we need to go after Osama though. I'm glad to hear someone (anyone) in politics actually talk about going after him. Even if it is just lip service, its about time someone starts thinking along these lines. I don't care for most of Obama's politics, but I'm glad he is taking a tough stance on Osama (even if it isn't practical). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WaterMan Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 But if we go after the people responsible for 9/11, the Republican CEOs won't be able to make money off 3 more wars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmarc117 Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 pakistan worries me.....those nukes could easily fall into the wrong hands if anything happens to musharaff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonorator Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 he's only come out with these statements after he was perceived as soft on terror during the CNN/YouTube debate. you are being manipulated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pope Flick Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 You just love putting words in peoples mouth, doncha? Not that I'm a fan of Obamas, but damn, get a grip bro. Havent you heard of the special forces? We copuld invade cross-border hideouts and Musharaf would be none the wiser. I never agree with B8bucket, but his question deserves serious thought. Do you want to create an internal incident in Pakistan that results in an Islamic Caliphate with nukes? That isn't far out of the realm of reality. We had our shot at Tora Bora, and blew it. At this point, we're more than a tad beholden to the fact that Musharrif is on a precipice internally and cannot get any closer to us at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ill Nuts Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 The "government" of Pakistan has never claimed to have any control of the region in question. It's the wild west out there pretty much, ruled completely by the tribal inhabitants. So when Mush mush there says that his people (the INI, which created the Taliban in the 1st place) will handle it, he's full of Sega!. I'm sorry to say it, but if we wanted UBL, we woulda had him by now. This administration has never let political concerns stop it before, they aren't stopping it now. I'm more of the opinion that UBL does more to help their cause as some vague threatening boogeyman. This isn't the Russians folks, it's some dude hiding out in a cave or a hut or a yurt possibly, what's he gonna do, send his goats and camels at em? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaP'N GRuNGe Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 "We have said before that we will not allow anyone to infringe our sovereignty," Azeem said. "If there is any actionable intelligence they should tell us and only our forces will take action on it and they are quite capable of it." Yeah, as capable as the Afghans were in taking out Bin Laden for us before he scrambled to safety in Pakistan. I've been saying we need go in and get that SOB for a long time. Go Obama. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.